ICQ caution

Stratics VeteranAlumniStratics Legend

Last night and today I have received icq messages from two different sources but with identical messages.
'can I use ur account'

Neither of the real owners of the icq numbers are close enough to me that they would even consider making such a request.

I don't know how icq numbers get hacked, but it appears someone else does.
If you are someone who shares his account information with friends or guildmates, be very, very sure that you're talking to who you think you are on icq.

Stratics Veteran

Lots of ICQ skectchiness of late. On a semi related note - there is a person on ATL who offers free gold to you if you ICQ him. He spams his ICQ all day at Luna. I tried to throw up some pets with names warning people about giving this guy their ICQ. I was paged on and my account received a mark for naming violations. Even though it is against TOS to spam your personal info (ICQ / email etc.) in game, after several pages - this clown continues to play on, unchecked.

Ahh well, enjoy wading in the cesspool, I will refrain from trying to warn people in the future. My lesson has been learned.

I was using icq6 i think, had upgrade window saying i had to upgrade to log on. ive since learnt my account has been gettin used by someone other than me, and yes asking for acc details. i play euro so ive posted there making people aware it aint me. ive uninstalled icq and will not use it in future.

Stratics Veteran

My ICQ was hit (and I have a fairly good idea how he got it). He did get one person to give their info, as she was a very trusting soul. It breaks my heart. It also has slandered my name, which makes me mad.

NEVER give out your account info to ANYONE. Especially not via ICQ or any other messenger as you have no way to know who is on the other end of the keyboard. I would never have asked anyone for their account info, not for any reason.

Anyway, if you can figure out how, check your "secret question" people. This guy is a UO player. Remember that if a person can guess your secret question, they can have the password sent to ANY e-mail address of their choice. They never have to gain access to your e-mail.

I can honestly say I didnt actually *know* my icq password. It was whatever was set three or four years ago. I dont know what my secret question was. But I bet I could have guessed it ... I bet it was probably "what is your favorite computer game?" ...

Stratics VeteranAlumni

I had the forced upgrade thing too, so will no longer be using ICQ. I can be contacted in game via any member of my guild, here via PM or on my own message board, again via PM. There are some who have my msn and mobile number, but that tends to be guild members only.

If you hear from my ICQ account, it's not me on the other end, so tell whoever it is that I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest their bums and their arms fall off!

Lots of ICQ skectchiness of late. On a semi related note - there is a person on ATL who offers free gold to you if you ICQ him. He spams his ICQ all day at Luna. I tried to throw up some pets with names warning people about giving this guy their ICQ. I was paged on and my account received a mark for naming violations. Even though it is against TOS to spam your personal info (ICQ / email etc.) in game, after several pages - this clown continues to play on, unchecked.

Ahh well, enjoy wading in the cesspool, I will refrain from trying to warn people in the future. My lesson has been learned.

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Did an article on this guy last week... he is also blatantly violating the in-game ToS for soliciting players' personal information.

Go to your ICQ options and make sure these are checked
accept only messages from contacts.
accept only calls from contacts.

Then make sure this is unchecked.
Share my status with icq and web users.
and make sure that the spam options are checked
Then go to customization under contact list indications make sure that you have show indicator when I get contact updates checked
No one can send you a message that is not on your list. You will have to add them before you can receive it.

Stratics Veteran

One... ICQ has always had issues with security, spam, and even though it has blocking tools it is easy enough for hackers to get around the blocking. ICQ is historically the least secure of all IMs, this has been in part because of the client (which is better than the past, but still questionable) and also because of the protocols used in ICQ. ICQ is trying to get better, it's a work in progress.

Two... the buzz going around is that recently ICQ has been gradually shutting down (eliminating) older ICQ protocols at the server level. This has been causing older ICQ (and multi-IM) clients to lose connectivity. The point of this is to push users to upgrade to the latest version of ICQ, which uses more efficient & secure protocols.

No time for linkage today, so either Google it or seach using your GameXbar (it uses Google too).

Stratics VeteranAlumniStratics Legend

Trouble is it also has one heck of a lot of extraneous dross added on. I switched to pidgin because the resource use of icq more than doubled. I don't want all their 'xtras' I just want to communicate.

Stratics Veteran

ICQ is not a very secure application. I stopped using my real information on my ICQ account about 7 years ago. I stopped using it altogether about 2 months ago (a friend of mine had a nasty encounter with a scammer). I don't recommend it to anyone. In fact, Instant Messaging in general is not a secure way to communicate. Never pass personal/private information via any IM program because everything you send is in CLEAR TEXT.

Newer IM's are coming out now that support a new Open Source Protocol called OTR (Off the Record) which encrypts your message before it is sent and decrypts it on the other side. CNET has a little write-up on it here.

You may want to check out Pidgin, which allows you to send and receive messages using OTR on Yahoo IM, AOL, etc. Here's a link to a description of Pidgin...http://www.pidgin.im/about/. You can also download it from that site.

Of course social hacking could still get through. My best advice...always be paronoid when you are on the internet.

well, as much as everyone on UO likes ICQ, it has been resposible for more hacked accounts than any onther msg prog, so much in fact, I got to see it in action twice, thank god it was not my acccount.

i banned ICQ for my house abut 3 years ago and no ones had any problems with hacks since.

I give ppl an email if they want to msg me lol, and they can set up msn or yahoo msg and the account i use have nothing to do with my uo account.

see in some OTHER game, if you get hacked a gm within about 3 days, will return your account and any itmes you lost, as there is a log for eveything that happens, too bad i am not too big on this very very popular game.

Stratics Veteran

I had a guy come up to me and he say hey can i use your account again real quick i just forgot the account info. I said ya no problem, do you need on it now? He quickly said yes probley creaming himself thinking he was gonna steal my stuff. I was like ok the account name is GO #%&@ YOURSELF. Then he got offended and started trash talking so i dropped the party.

Lots of ICQ skectchiness of late. On a semi related note - there is a person on ATL who offers free gold to you if you ICQ him. He spams his ICQ all day at Luna. I tried to throw up some pets with names warning people about giving this guy their ICQ. I was paged on and my account received a mark for naming violations. Even though it is against TOS to spam your personal info (ICQ / email etc.) in game, after several pages - this clown continues to play on, unchecked.

Ahh well, enjoy wading in the cesspool, I will refrain from trying to warn people in the future. My lesson has been learned.

I don't know - could it be that it isn't as bad with security as people think, unless one is using the swiss-cheese-security ICQ Professional 2003b version, pr plder hacked versions?

There's a reason that whole line of ICQ products was discontinued, but people still kept downloading it and using it.

Pro2003b was contemporary with ICQ Lite 3 - the latter which eventually evolved through ICQ 4, ICQ 5, and is now up to ICQ 6.5

If ICQ had pulled the ability of 2003b and its ancestors from connecting years ago, most of the continued stories of ICQ insecurity would have been out-of-date years ago. Most of the annoying bells and whistles on modern ICQ clients can be disabled in settings.

Stratics Veteran

I had a guy come up to me and he say hey can i use your account again real quick i just forgot the account info. I said ya no problem, do you need on it now? He quickly said yes probley creaming himself thinking he was gonna steal my stuff. I was like ok the account name is GO #%&@ YOURSELF. Then he got offended and started trash talking so i dropped the party.

Stratics Veteran

I don't know - could it be that it isn't as bad with security as people ...

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I was using ICQ 6.5. The issue has nothing to do with the program itself, really. The issue is, if someone can guess your "secret question" they can have the password sent to ANY e-mail address, not necessarily the one associated with ICQ. They don't actually have to hack anything except the answer to a question.

I seriously think this is how the guy was getting them, since he was not able to get every ICQ that he got the # for ... only a few. I am the first to admit I likely used the weakest question available ... mainly because of the questions they provide, only one of them is likely to *never* change. If I recall correctly, you did not have the option of a custom question when I set up that account, so the choices were like ... favorite actor, favorite band, favorite movie, favorite computer game, favorite pet .... take a guess?

Aye i was on atl a few days ago and seen that ass clown spamming at the bank.... i partied him and asked hey wassup w/ the free gold.. his reply was to drop party.. go figure.. thank god for the ignore... anyway be safe everyone..

I was using ICQ 6.5. The issue has nothing to do with the program itself, really. The issue is, if someone can guess your "secret question" they can have the password sent to ANY e-mail address, not necessarily the one associated with ICQ. They don't actually have to hack anything except the answer to a question.

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Frankly, that's a problem with most online apps, including a number of banks' online banking page - no custom question.

I handle it from being a fanfic writer.

I have an old fanfic that, due to disturbing content (in comparison to events in it compared to ones it is related to), will NEVER be put online (in fact, I will never type it in, or take the handwritten copy to a convention). I answer web security questions using the correct answers for one of the characters that appears ONLY in that fanfic, of people, places, pets and the like that don't even have basis in the original universe of the story it was derived from.

You should never give out your account name and/or password to anyone. Even if you know them in real life and you know where they sleep. Because, you don't know what they would do with the info if they got an instant message.

It's not just ICQ the same thing happens with Aim, MSN, and yahoo. It's more common in UO with ICQ since that's the most common instant message program everyone uses.

ICQ is what it is. It is not ICQ's fault if your account gets hacked. The only and I repeat ONLY way you get hacked is if you share personal information with others. I have been playing this game since 97. I have been using icq for almost all that time. I have never been hacked. Coincidently I have never shared my account info or any other personal information.

What really turns me off are the players who don't know you come up to you strike up a conversation for maybe 3 minutes then they make up an excuse that they have to go, and say if ya ever need anything heres my icq # icq me if ya ever need anything. of course ya have to be polite and say ok ill do that ty nice meeting you. but never take the icq# and log. I know that might sound mean, but with all the shady players with the hacks and cheats you have to becareful.

Stratics Veteran

I maintain my position about the guy on ATL - especially in light of all of the icq related nonsense. All you need is one weak account with a good list of contacts and your message archive turned on. This guy is legit in the sense that he will give you some gold for ICQ'ing him. Just think about it though - why would anyone spam that they would give you free gold if you add them in ICQ. Enjoy your 50k.

Stratics VeteranAlumniStratics Legend

My all time fav was someone coming up to an alt char of mine in Luna and saying Airmid is in your guild and explained how "she" helped him dupe in game and wanted personal info. People will try just to see what works and play on people's trust. It's okay to say trust no one with personal info, you are not a bad person or bad friend for saying no. Tell them you are protecting their interest as well because if you were ever hacked a finger could not be pointed their way.

My husband is back in the hospital so I havent
been home much and when it was sent again last nite
I said "whats up with you Napa Peeps" because I got
the same message from Foamy the first time.

I had seen a short thread on catskills from Black_Sun
but didnt read the whole thing. So when this happen
I put you on Block on my ICQ
so for right now if you need me or just want to chat right now
we can throught our pm right here untill this works out
and I have some sort of life at home again.

I knew something was strange because I know you well enough
to know you would never ask me straight out to use my acct.
Last nite they even said after I gave the whole "whats up with
peeps, you and foamy both on the same nite" and my husband
in the hospital and I wasnt home thing and I dont give out my info.
They came back with well my husbands acct is down right now
and he is useing my acct and Im looking for someone to let me use
theirs for a little bit to play.

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